"Recent structural movements" when buying leasehold flat

AlexMac

katastrofa wrote: »

...the guy on the construction site on the opposite side of Limehouse Cut said that there is a lot of settlement and they have to put 3m of brick foundations in the ground to give the building something to stand on

If you take the unanimous advice from the experienced posters above, it sounds like you'll have had a lucky escape...

But given the geology, I'm surprised that 3m of footings are considered adequate when building on what is, in effect, reclaimed swamp! I'd always assumed they built on immensely deep piles or concrete rafts?

The dodgy geology of this area is illustrated by the way the Brunels built the nearby tunnel; now used by the "Overground" (formerly the East London line, before that, the first Thames tunnel).

They didn't need to excavate first; they simply laid down an iron hoop on the surface of the marshy ground, and started building a circular brick tower. This sank, and became the initial shaft, which I've been inside; an impressive circular hole many metres deeper than the 3m of footings mentioned above. It only stopped sinking when they stopped adding bricks to the top!

http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/history/rotherhithe-shaft/

nimbo

AlexMac wrote: »

If you take the unanimous advice from the experienced posters above, it sounds like you'll have had a lucky escape...

But given the geology, I'm surprised that 3m of footings are considered adequate when building on what is, in effect, reclaimed swamp! I'd always assumed they built on immensely deep piles or concrete rafts?

The dodgy geology of this area is illustrated by the way the Brunels built the nearby tunnel; now used by the "Overground" (formerly the East London line, before that, the first Thames tunnel).

They didn't need to excavate first; they simply laid down an iron hoop on the surface of the marshy ground, and started building a circular brick tower. This sank, and became the initial shaft, which I've been inside; an impressive circular hole many metres deeper than the 3m of footings mentioned above. It only stopped sinking when they stopped adding bricks to the top!

http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/history/rotherhithe-shaft/

Thanks for that A real interesting read.

How do you find this stuff out when buying a house?

Doozergirl

AlexMac wrote: »

If you take the unanimous advice from the experienced posters above, it sounds like you'll have had a lucky escape...

But given the geology, I'm surprised that 3m of footings are considered adequate when building on what is, in effect, reclaimed swamp! I'd always assumed they built on immensely deep piles or concrete rafts?

The dodgy geology of this area is illustrated by the way the Brunels built the nearby tunnel; now used by the "Overground" (formerly the East London line, before that, the first Thames tunnel).

They didn't need to excavate first; they simply laid down an iron hoop on the surface of the marshy ground, and started building a circular brick tower. This sank, and became the initial shaft, which I've been inside; an impressive circular hole many metres deeper than the 3m of footings mentioned above. It only stopped sinking when they stopped adding bricks to the top!

http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/history/rotherhithe-shaft/

Amazing. I love what people know. Thanks

AnotherJoe

katastrofa wrote: »

Thanks. We were going to buy a leasehold flat in the building, so it wouldn't be our job to fix the wall - we're worried about the risk of building collapsing (obviously!) and the possible difficulties with selling it later.

It might well be, if its not covered by the buildings insurance. It could also be a hugely expensive and long winded process.
Then as you say danger, and difficulty selling, plus loss of value,

Lace up your trainers and run.

katastrofa

I am inclined to do that, and looking at other properties now. Out of morbid curiosity, I asked via the seller) the management company of the building for explanation and to see the buildings insurance policy schedule. Their responses:

"It appears as a crack in decorative brick cladding, caused by natural movements of the building and also because cladding was originally made without special gaps to dampen the effects of whole building structure moving (it happens with all buildings)."

"these cracks are within decorative cladding and do not appear to be any structural danger.
Site directors are planning site gating and few other site improvements and they will decide if decorative cladding has to be repaired"

The buildings insurance policy includes a special clause "Special Clauses 1 – Subsidence Ground Heave and Landslip Special terms: Subsidence Excess increased to £2,000 in 2016". So the insurer is aware of the issue. I also noticed that as % of the sum insured, the policy premium is higher for the building with cracks (but it's hard to compare, because policies include different things e.g. the old one does not cover landlord's rental income and the new one does).

HouseBuyer77

It appears as a crack in decorative brick cladding

If it truly is decorative, then maybe it's not actually that bad a problem.

On the other hand even if decorative it's still letting water in where it otherwise wouldn't have, which could be causing issues.

Further more:

and also because cladding was originally made without special gaps to dampen the effects of whole building structure moving (it happens with all buildings)

Seems to pretty much say they messed up the construction. Leaves you wondering what else they messed up.

So maybe not quite as bad an issue as it first appeared, but definitely something to worry about still.

Overal unless there's something particularly special about this property walking away sounds like the best bet.

katastrofa

It's a London modern build, of course the construction is messed up. I come from a part of continental Europe which has -20 C winters pretty often, British modern houses seem to me to be made of balsa wood and toilet paper

katastrofa

Update: we tried with the second lender and they also said "no". In this situation we had no choice but to withdraw the offer.

katastrofa

Property's now back on the market with the same agent... I wonder if they will tell the new buyers about the bad surveys

lealj

Hi All,

I am the actual seller of the property and was somewhat shocked at some of the assumptions made here, as you'd expect from any seller. The original post is correct and I have no issue in this being raised here but just wished I knew about it before as a lot of the subsequent posts are pure assumptions.

I am not going to write a huge response but do want to clarify a few points.

a) The crack is not in any way structural.
We were frustrated as much as the buyers that two (not just one) lender surveyor denied a loan due to the crack. This obviously triggered my concern and I got a chartered structural surveyor to come to take a look and produce a proper survey. I say this because, the building surveyors that banks employ will not go beyond a visual external check...and on that basis, it doesn't look great. However, from the structural survey, it was clearly deemed cosmetic.

b) The crack is on decorative cladding, now what?
So the cladding chosen wasn't ideal, and thermal cracking occurred. As a leaseholder paying my dues I wanted to find out why the property management weren't doing anything 'permanent' about it. The fact is they are, but they've taken a commercial decision which doesn't help sellers...but I can understand their point of view. The fact is, the cracking is on the decorative cladding at the back of the commercial unit at the bottom of the property. Planning approval has been obtained to convert the commercial property into residential the approval is with the lawyers before the works are commissioned.So management are waiting for those works to go ahead rather than incur additional charges that would be passed onto free/leaseholders.


Finally, the survey will be made available to any other potential buyer and their bank's building surveyor.

Regards
J Leal